Earlier this week my mom called me and told me she had to give me “props.” I blame Randy Jackson. Although I gotta hand it to him, if he can reach a language Nazi like my mom with that kind of crazy talk he truly is influencing the English language. I’ll really be impressed if she starts wearing a do rag and an oversized watch.

Slightly more entertaining was last night’s showing of American Idol--which also happened to be vastly more entertaining than last week. I’m just gonna go ahead and say Scott was my favorite. I’m not sure that I’ll ever really like the songs he picks, but somehow I don’t care when he’s singing. I agree with what was said about him last night. I can really feel the passion coming from him while he’s singing. I may have a man-crush. Does he remind anyone else of Josh Groban’s more sincere bother?

Sometimes I get caught up in watching the show and picking out what liked and disliked, I forget that I was once on the stage… It’s weird to think about. Seems like a dream at times. Like Narnia. I’m having a hard time thinking who would play the part of the giant beaver? Actually now that I think about it a couple people come to mind…. Any thoughts?

No, but seriously, it’s easy to sit from home and critique the show, but standing in the shoes of the contestants and looking out over the crowd and into the camera lens that equals several million is a pretty unique place to be. That kind of intensity can turn otherwise great performers into mush.

Take into consideration that all of last night’s performers up till now have been waiting for a few weeks for their turn, watching their “friends” perform and both succeed and fail. They start to wonder, am I going to be the one to go through? They’re starting to realize that they now have fan clubs. It’s a weird sensation. People start to recognize them wherever they go and people all over the country are talking about them.

Then finally you get to the CBS lot and are given the run-down on how to sing to a camera and what to expect and yadda yadda yadda. Plus, they see the stage for the first time. That’s kind of a highlight experience because it’s usually off-limits until the day before the performance show. Most things are off limits now that I think about it.

After all that anticipation it’s easy to understand why contestants over-compensate and over-sing. Plus, now with the pot of gold so big at the end of the rainbow you won’t believe the devastation that a contestant feels after a bad performance.

Anyway, last night I was feeling nostalgic and remembering how it was.

My pick is Lil, Scott and Jorge.